Relaxation of Restrictions, Part III - **Read OP for Mod Warnings**

Deleted User wrote: »

It’s baffling how disproportionate the level of fear is in this country. I can only assume people are reading too many headlines and listening to Tony/Simon way too much.

There is a graph posted just a page back showing that barely anyone under 65 has even died.

On social media, some people are saying they won’t send their kids back to school in September as it’s too dangerous. Lots of curtain twitchers today criticising anyone that went out to a hardware store.

One guy saying the queues for ICU will be out the door next week.

I had RTÉ on myself the other day and I heard the words deadly virus every 5 mins. It’s only deadly if you’re over 75 and have an underlying health issue.

I just don’t see this level of fear in any other countries.

There is scare mongering absolutely and the risk remains small to those under 70 (and almost non existent to under 45) but youre taking it to extreme levels. Almost 2000 people in Brazil under 59 have died so far(out of the hugely underestimated death toll), and in New York almost 4400 people under 59 years of age have died

New York stats
https://www.silive.com/coronavirus/2020/04/coronavirus-state-issues-list-of-3565-deaths-by-age.html
Brazil stats
https://www.poder360.com.br/coronavirus/covid-19-death-toll-by-age-groups-in-brazil-italy-spain-the-us/

LiquidZeb wrote: »

I agree with the lock down 100% what I don't agree with is the drawn out saga for reopening, it'll do more damage compared to emulating the likes of Austria and Denmark. What makes Ireland so exceptional to every other country in Europe we need to drag our feet? Maybe try reading what people say rather than play pretend intellectual trying to half arsedly catch people out.

The govt has said moving forward will be based on raw data.

They have also left flexibility in the timetable either way.

What we all should be doing is urging people to stick to the rules so we get out quicker.

Some on here (not saying you) have been telling people to ignore the rules!

LiquidZeb wrote: »

But with additional cases in double digits and deaths down to single digits

Has to stay like that for a protracted period of time.

A second lock down would be disasterous. We need to put the foot on this now and keep the social distancing measures in place after the economy is fully open.

Otherwise in Autumn we head to disaster.

https://www.reddit.com/r/China_Flu/comments/gmcth3/r0_above_10_again_lots_of_cases_in_vienna/

R0 in Austria has risen above 1 again despite the widespread use of masks. Very hard virus to keep control of it seems

Deleted User wrote: »

I meant 65.
Apologies for the typo, it’s not only the government that make them.

yeah still, ah here...

wakka12 wrote: »

https://www.reddit.com/r/China_Flu/comments/gmcth3/r0_above_10_again_lots_of_cases_in_vienna/

R0 in Austria has risen above 1 again despite the widespread use of masks. Very hard virus to keep control of it seems

And they were just now saying on CNN (someone forecasting death numbers) that mask wearing seemed to be outweighing the increased mobility in some USA populations..

Said mask wearing can halve infectivity ..

They were explaining why their death forecasts have dipped slightly over the past few days.

SusieBlue wrote: »

I actually believed the same until they fudged the businesses included in phase 1 at the 11th hour, due to a ‘typo’.
These businesses had spent all last week getting ready to reopen, setting up new procedures etc only to be told Friday that it was a mistake and that they weren’t allowed open after all.

Meanwhile the drapery, homeware, and clothing retail sections in all of my local Dunnes stores are now open and have been for the last few weeks and they’re getting away with it because they also sell food.
It must be soul destroying for other businesses seeing them open and making money while they’re being prevented from opening for another 3 weeks, after being closed since mid March.

After that I have no doubt that there’ll be more ‘typos’ and miscommunications along the way, and I can’t see them accelerating things at all.

The reality is we should be entering phase 3 on June 8th and not a moment later.
We are ready for it, businesses are ready for it, and the health service is ready for it. With over a million taxpayers now unemployed, the public purse is also most definitely ready for it.
We can’t expect much more compliance from people who have already pretty much sacrificed everything.

There is actually so much tension and anger where I am from that I genuinely wouldn’t be surprised to see Trump style lockdown protests soon. People have had enough of being chastised when we have done what was asked of us, and now the government aren’t fulfilling their end of the bargain.

While I agree with most that you have said here I have to say that Cork has had a very different and is still having a very different experience to Dublin. Dublin has 48% of cases and Cork only 5% , so the health service here in Dublin while ready would be hard pressed to cope with a surge now . People are talking about 50% capacity in ICUs but I don't know where they are getting there numbers from. There are non Covid patients in ICU too . Beaumont and the Mater have only 5 or 6 ICU beds free each , as of yesterday . Stats all on Gov.ie if anyone wants to see them .

There is no tension or fears about protests here either . Everyone was laughing at the Four Courts crowd and I would know a lot of people who supported other protests eg Water , going along with all they have been asked to do so far anyway .
Is it a case of the Rebel County going on here ? Or is this more exaggeration ?

Conte.. wrote: »

Holy cow do u ever get tired of posting

You forgot a word at the end of that , lol

Goldengirl wrote: »

While I agree with most that you have said here I have to say that Cork has had a very different and is still having a very different experience to Dublin. Dublin has 48% of cases and Cork only 5% , so the health service here in Dublin while ready would be hard pressed to cope with a surge now . People are talking about 50% capacity in ICUs but I don't know where they are getting there numbers from. There are non Covid patients in ICU too . Beaumont and the Mater have only 5 or 6 ICU beds free each , as of yesterday . Stats all on Gov.ie if anyone wants to see them .

There is no tension or fears about protests here either . Everyone was laughing at the Four Courts crowd and I would know a lot of people who supported other protests eg Water , going along with all they have been asked to do so far anyway .
Is it a case of the Rebel County going on here ? Or is this more exaggeration ?

As of Saturday, only 27 of the new cases were in Dublin. The cases are so low nationwide now that I find it very hard to believe that Dublin is struggling and under pressure when the health service has been running at reduced capacity up till now, and the cases are so few.
Then again you have a propensity to defend the restrictions and the health service at every possible opportunity, so I’m not remotely surprised you are still trying to insist that Dublin isn’t coping.

Have a read through the thread and I’m sure you will find another 6/7 posts over the last few days from other members from Cork who are all saying the same as me, so you may take back your implication that I’m exaggerating.
However at this point it’s quite clear that if I said the sky was blue you’d say it’s purple, so again, not surprising.

And you have a damn cheek to accuse me of that when twice now in a few short hours, you have labelled anyone who would like to see an accelerated easing of restrictions as a Gemma supporter.
Weren’t you only complaining a few pages ago about how annoying it is to have your posts taken up wrong, and how patronising it is?
Pot meet kettle.

[Deleted User] wrote: »

It’s baffling how disproportionate the level of fear is in this country. I can only assume people are reading too many headlines and listening to Tony/Simon way too much.

There is a graph posted just a page back showing that barely anyone under 65 has even died.

On social media, some people are saying they won’t send their kids back to school in September as it’s too dangerous. Lots of curtain twitchers today criticising anyone that went out to a hardware store.

One guy saying the queues for ICU will be out the door next week.

I had RTÉ on myself the other day and I heard the words deadly virus every 5 mins. It’s only deadly if you’re over 75 and have an underlying health issue.

I just don’t see this level of fear in any other countries.

225 people have died with no underlying conditions , so mist be young enough.

SusieBlue wrote: »

Where did you pull that 100k figure from? Only 5k people have come off the covid payment this week according to an article RTE published just a few hours ago. It mentioned nothing about a hundred thousand people. I’d find it hard to believe that garden centres & Woodies & the like employ 100k staff regardless.

https://www.rte.ie/amp/1139104/

And I was actually incorrect myself, there are now 1,263,000 citizens reliant on state income support as a result of lockdown, not just 1 million as I previously stated.
The majority of industries have been closed for over two months now and will be closed at a minimum for another 3 weeks, if not longer.
Our freedom of movement is restricted to within 5km of home until the 20th of July. The health service is running at a significantly reduced capacity and is only just beginning to restart itself after over 2 months of suspended services.

What would you call that? I would call that paralysed.

You say the country is opening up, but we have 12 more weeks, three more months to wait, until we reopen all industries and get everyone back to work, with the ever looming threat from Tony that we will be reverting to previous restrictions if at any point the cases rise.
84 cases does not justify shutting down an entire country, no matter how you try to dress it up.
That’s not being over dramatic, that’s being realistic.

And construction workers are now back , that's where all the numbers are .
And income support is not unemployment as you previously said. A lot of those workers receiving that will be back at work as soon as it opens up and are working from home right now and have been all along.
Your last post claimed the health service was only half full, now its reduced capacity ..which ? Health service is now getting back to normal work and private hospitals are going to take on the waiting lists , at least here in Dublin. Cork you say is not ?
The threat is not from Tony , of returning to restrictions if the infections start to rise again, it's from people not playing their part while restrictions are eased.
The entire country is opening up precisely because there are 84 cases , so that is another fairy story .
So yes , it's all drama and overexaggeration no matter how you dress it up.

Goldengirl wrote: »

And construction workers are now back , that's where all the numbers are .
And income support is not unemployment as you previously said. A lot of those workers receiving that will be back at work as soon as it opens up and are working from home right now and have been all along.
Your last post claimed the health service was only half full, now its reduced capacity ..which ? Health service is now getting back to normal work and private hospitals are going to take on the waiting lists , at least here in Dublin. Cork you say is not ?
The threat is not from Tony , of returning to restrictions if the infections start to rise again, it's from people not playing their part while restrictions are eased.
The entire country is opening up precisely because there are 84 cases , so that is another fairy story .
So yes , it's all drama and overexaggeration no matter how you dress it up.

That still doesn’t explain your 100k figure, that figure hasn’t been reported anywhere that I’ve seen and I’ve looked?
If we are going to play with semantics here, then it actually states that 1.26 million people are in receipt of either the covid-19 payment or are on the wage subsidy scheme, which is hardly a better scenario for the public purse.
That still means the state is currently supporting 1,263,000 citizens with hardly any tax coming in because no one is working.

I read earlier that it is expected that the two month suspension of non essential health services, surgeries, screenings and appointments is going to create an additional 2 year backlog on the system.
You keep repeating that services are restarting this week, but that’s irrelevant. They were unavailable for the last 9 weeks and the backlog now means that these services are still going to be difficult to access in the future.
It’s still an issue that is going to effect all of us.

The fact that we only have 84 cases per day and the country still won’t be fully functioning for another 12 weeks is absolutely scandalous.

To be honest I’m not really bothered that you think I’m exaggerating and being dramatic because I’ve read this whole thread and I can see many others are having a similar experience to me.
They can’t all be lying about the hardship they are facing, the struggles of isolation, lack of access to medical care, financial worries and fear for the future.

We can’t all have arrived at our theory that easing of restrictions should be accelerated because we’re Gemma supporters or heartless bast*rds, and being honest that’s a lazy conclusion to come to.
It’s a cheap shot.

Coronavirus is not the most important thing or even the worst thing that could happen to a person.
The many should never be sacrificed for the very few.
If you can’t see that, then feel free to stay locked in your house till you feel safe enough to leave, but support other people’s choice to want to work and live their lives.